Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. Josh Braun walks through building one specific cold email for one specific, well-chosen prospect, showing exactly why a message... Josh Braun Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Let's Write a Good Cold Email Josh Braun In 2 answers
2. Steli Efti built Close after running outsourced sales for over 200 venture backed startups, so this guide is written by someone... startupsalesguide.com Article · 20 min read · Starting Up Steli Efti's Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales Steli Efti In 2 answers
3. A short, free checklist you can hold next to your draft while writing your first cold email, not just the subject line but the... Josh Braun Template · Starting Up 15 Cold Email Copywriting Principles Josh Braun In 2 answers
4. Jason Lemkin is the investor on the other end of the email, walking through two real cold emails he actually funded and... SaaStr (Jason Lemkin) Article · Starting Up 2 Cold Emails I Funded For Millions SaaStr (Jason Lemkin) In 2 answers
5. Josh Braun makes a living teaching sales teams to write first lines that could not be pasted into anyone else's inbox, which is... Josh Braun Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up Killer Cold Email Opening Lines Josh Braun In 2 answers
6. This gives you an actual repeatable process (research, write, move on) instead of vague advice to do your homework, which is... Lavender Article · 8 min read · Starting Up How to Build a Cold Email Personalization Process Will Allred In 2 answers
7. This is Google's own rulebook for what gets an email into Gmail instead of spam: SPF or DKIM for every sender, SPF, DKIM, and... Google (Gmail/Workspace support) Article · Starting Up Email sender guidelines Google (Gmail/Workspace support) In 2 answers
8. Before you send a single cold email to a real prospect, send one to this tool. It gives you a spam score out of 10, checks your... mail-tester.com Tool · Starting Up Mail Tester mail-tester.com In 2 answers
9. A current, segment-by-segment benchmark report broken out by industry, list size, and company size, so you can compare your... Instantly.ai Article · Starting Up Cold Email Benchmark Report 2026 Instantly.ai In 2 answers
10. McKenzie went from zero consulting clients to a full pipeline using direct, honest outreach with no case studies to point to,... Kalzumeus Software Podcast · 50 min audio · Starting Up Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie on Getting Your First Consulting Client Patrick McKenzie, Ramit Sethi In 2 answers
11. Carlos Espinal is a seed investor who reads cold pitches for a living, and this essay lays out exactly what he needs in the... Medium Essay · ~8 min read · Starting Up The Art of the Cold Outreach for Founders Carlos E. Espinal In 2 answers
12. Video · ~75 min · Starting Up Founder-Led Sales, with Pete Kazanjy Pete Kazanjy, hosted by Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
13. Gong analyzed over 100,000 real cold calls to find what actually correlates with booking a meeting, so this is data, not... Gong Article · 12 min read · Starting Up Essential Cold Calling Tips: 17 Proven Techniques for Success Chris Orlob In 2 answers
14. A ready made list of open, past behavior questions you can literally bring into your next call, grouped so you're not... Indie Hackers Template · Starting Up 24 User Interview Questions you can use (free template too!) Joshua Tabansi In 2 answers
15. Video · Starting Up How to Validate an App Idea in 2026 (Customer Interviews, Landing Pages & Reddit) Varun Mayya In 2 answers
16. A comprehensive, practical walkthrough of the whole interview process, recruiting, scripting, running, and synthesizing, from a... User Interviews Article · Starting Up The Ultimate Guide to Doing Kickass Customer Interviews User Interviews In 2 answers
17. This is a catalogue of the specific ways founders sabotage their own sessions, including talking too much, asking hypothetical... Nielsen Norman Group Article · Starting Up Why User Interviews Fail Nielsen Norman Group In 2 answers
18. This explains why people behave differently the instant they know you're watching, which is the deeper reason your own presence... Nielsen Norman Group Article · Starting Up The Hawthorne Effect or Observer Bias in User Research Nielsen Norman Group In 2 answers
19. This lays out the practical mechanics of a feedback session, including being neutral when you present the prototype and... Interaction Design Foundation Article · Starting Up Test Your Prototypes: How to Gather Feedback and Maximize Learning Interaction Design Foundation In 2 answers
20. Wilcox gives you a literal five question script built entirely around a recent problem, not your product, which is exactly the... Justin Wilcox, Customer Development Labs Essay · Starting Up How I Interview Customers Justin Wilcox In 2 answers
21. This is the practical way to act on the route around your inner circle entirely part of your short answer: it is a marketplace... Respondent.io Tool · Starting Up Respondent Respondent.io In 2 answers
22. Before writing a single line of code for his fourth startup, Shreesha Ramdas hired a salesperson and ran over 200 interviews to... The Neon Show Podcast · ~50 min · Starting Up 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas on What to Do Before You Build Your Startup Siddhartha Ahluwalia In 2 answers
23. A two minute companion to the longer HBR piece above, this is the one line version of our short answer you can forward to... Harvard Business Review Article · Starting Up Instead of Surveying Your Customers, Interview Them Harvard Business Review In 2 answers
24. This is the clearest playbook for show, don't ask. The five day structure ends with a rough, facade-level prototype in front of... Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz Book · ~280 pages · Starting Up Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days Jake Knapp In 2 answers

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